


let's go home, shara bey

by visiblemarket



Series: Foundations [4]
Category: Star Wars: Shattered Empire
Genre: F/M, Fanmix, Motherhood, love in a time of war, space latinxs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 16:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8923615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/visiblemarket/pseuds/visiblemarket
Summary: give us love in the time that we have -- An annotated Shara Bey(/Kes Dameron + Poe Dameron) fanmix, because why not.





	

>  
> 
> **let's go home, shara bey ** | (  _[listen](https://playmoss.com/en/visiblemarket/playlist/let-s-go-home-shara-bey) _ )  
>  _give us love in the time that we have_  
>
>>  
>> 
>> on your wings **iron and wine** // soldier **ingrid michaelson** // heroes **mika** // so **girl in a coma** //dear theodosia **regina spektor** // my favorite book **stars** // love will take you **angus & julia stone ** // ave que emigra **gaby moreno** // the finish line **snow patrol** // in our bedroom after the war **stars** // june hymn **the decembrists** // maybe sprout wings **the mountain goats** // amie **damien rice** // still fighting it **jen armstrong** // remember me as a time of day **explosions in the sky** **  
> **

  

* * *

 

##  _when you were young, and dreamed of glory_

**_“On Your Wings” — Iron and Wine_  
** So the choice of this song, beyond the obvious bird/flight imagery which I will always associate with Shara Bey and which will be used a lot in this fanmix, is the line “ _God, give us love in the time that we have_ ” — the idea of Kes & Shara meeting during the rebellion and falling in love during a time of war and uncertainty is a powerful image to me. Their own sense of hope in a period of such deep despair. 

> _God give us love in the time that we have_    
>  _God, there are guns growing out of our bones_  
>  _God, every road takes us farther from home_

Lots of nice haunting imagery in there, too. I just picture the oppressive weight of the Empire that way — hovering, tinting everything morbidly, making everyone a fighter.  
  
**_“Soldier — Ingrid Michaelson_  
** Obviously both Shara & Kes are soldiers, but this is primarily from Shara’s POV, so. I like to imagine a kind of complicated courtship, if only because of the whole uncertainty issue — there’s a war on, how much can you allow yourself to fall in love with another rebel when mortality rates are high and you don’t know what the future might bring? And if you _can_ put aside all of that uncertainty — should you?  

> _I don't believe in anything but myself_  
>  _But then you opened up a door, you opened up a door_  
>  _Now I start to believe in something else_  
>  _But how do I know if I'll make it through?_  
>  _How do I know? Where's the proof in you?_

Shara going into it with a strong belief in what the Alliance is fighting for — ('“People were hurting,” his mother told him. “People were suffering. Your father and I couldn’t sit and do nothing.”’ — _Before the Awakening_ ) but to put her faith in someone on a personal level must’ve been…difficult. 

> _And so it goes, this soldier knows_  
>  _The battle with the heart isn't easily won_  
>  _But it can be won_

**_“Heroes” — Mika_  
** This is a song for both Kes and Shara, individually and together: both of them seem to have a bit of a reckless hero impulse (which Poe has 100% inherited), but I like to think of them as desperate to spare each other from as much pain as possible. The tension between being willing to do everything they can for the Rebellion (up to and including making the ultimate sacrifice) but also not wanting the person they love to face the pain that comes with losing them has to have been a real concern.

> _Your blood on me_  
>  _And my blood on you_  
>  _But to make you bleed_  
>  _The only thing I wouldn't do_

Plus, even in fanmix form, I appreciate the chance to foreshadow Shara’s untimely death a little: 

> _I wish there was a way_  
>  _To give you a hand to hold_  
>  _Cause you don't have to die in your glory_  
>  _To die to never grow old_ **_  
> _ **

**_“So” — Girl in a Coma_**  
This song is about the transition from being A Soldier and a Rebel, with A Job To Do, with someone who lets herself love and be loved — there’s an uncertainty to it but also an acknowledgment that love is something real and important and intrinsic, to her (and to Kes), and part of what they’re fighting for.  
Plus there’s this bit, which I like to read/imply as a hint about ~what’s to come~: 

> _so I’m chasing life and I see it grow_  
>  _and so you’re following_  
>  _heading up a ladder to the unknown_

Also _Girl in a Coma_ was a great Latina band and I felt like this fanmix needed fewer white people.  
  
**_“Dear Theodosia” — Regina Spektor_  
** Okay aside from the name involved, this is the most DamFam song literally ever. I 100% waited for this version to be released (from a female vocalist) to finish this fanmix. I _mean:_

> _You will come of age with our young nation_  
>  _We’ll bleed and fight for you, we’ll make it right for you_  
>  _If we lay a strong enough foundation_  
>  _We’ll pass it on to you, we’ll give the world to you_  
>  _And you’ll blow us all away_  
>  _Someday, someday_  
>  _Yeah, you’ll blow us all away_  
>  _Someday, someday_

And then their son goes on to _blow up the Death Star x  100_ so like, that worked out.

Also I kind of imagine the beginning as " _You have my eyes, You have your ~~mother~~ father’s name_ ” because just generally I assume Poe looks _ridiculously_ like his mother, with the green eyes and the curly hair and probably the lip-bite and the jaw clench, and obviously he has Kes’s last name, so it all works out.  
  
**“My Favorite Book” — Stars  
** It may not sound like it, but this song is the Battle of Endor for them: 

>   _And to this day when everything breaks_  
>  _You are the anchor that holds me_

Kes & Shara have significant moments on Battle of Endor, as portrayed in _Shattered Empire_ and _Before the Awakening_ , not just thinking about each other, but having _faith_ in each other — Shara in Kes getting the shields down:

And Kes on Shara, from _Before the Awakening_ : 

> _I thought we were done, I thought we had lost, and I mean everything. The war, everything. I looked up, past trees taller than these, into this perfect blue sky. You could just barely see the Death Star in the daytime. I knew what was happening up there, the battle they were fighting…And I thought that your mother was looking down on me, right then. In the middle of whatever she was doing, whatever fight she was fighting, it was like I could feel her eyes on me. I could feel how much she loved me, and how much she loved you._

Also: _  
_

> _I was always late, you never afraid_  
>  _That we could be falling_  
>  _All our friends would say that maybe we should wait_  
>  _But they can't see what's coming_

I feel like Kes and Shara not just deciding to start a relationship and a marriage, but also have a _child_ , in the midst of the rebellion (Poe was born after the Battle of Yavin, probably on Hoth), when victory wasn’t a sure thing, shows such _faith_ they both have in the rebels actually winning, and the stakes they have for fighting as hard as they do, personally.  
  
**_“Love Will Take You” — Angus & Julia Stone_  
**So after Endor, Kes is ready to think about the things he wasn’t able to think about before: the little house on a quiet planet somewhere, peace, a family united again.

> _In this world a heart beats slow_  
>  _In my arms, let's share the cold_  
>  _In my eyes you're all I've known  
>  Darlin', let's go home_

A beautiful image that he is apparently pitching to Shara in the midst of a firefight with a bund of imperial hold outs, because _Damerons_. Apparently the worst sense of timing.

Shara’s a little more cautious — she’s more aware of the difficulties that come with establishing a new government, with _shattering an empire_.

But, she gets there:

  
**“Ave Que Emigra” — Gaby Moreno**  
I have Opinions about Space Spanish and whether or not Shara speaks it, but in terms of the allegory, I kind of half-heartedly assume that any language that isn’t Basic was tamped down pretty firmly by the Empire. So, now that it’s fallen, now that Shara ( & Kes, & Poe) have the chance to embrace their _space latinidad_ a little more, and we get to have a fun jaunty song in (real) Spanish. _  
_

> _Cansados de estar corriendo_  
>  _En tiempos de cacería_  
>  _Alzo en alto mi vuelo_  
>  _Como el ave que emigra_
> 
> (Tired of running   
>  In times of hunting   
>  lifted high in my flight   
>  like a bird that migrates)

More lyrics & a decent translation [here](http://lyricstranslate.com/en/ave-que-emigra-bird-migrates.html-0).

(This song is literally about Guatemala, btw: you can listen to Gaby Moreno & Oscar Isaac sing it together [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wHKVByjCKE). I would’ve used that version but the quality’s not as good.)

~and they lived happily ever after on Space Guatemala, the end~

* * *

 

##  _**but at least the war is over** _

In my head this fanmix is either a musical or the soundtrack to a Shara Bey movie — so it’s at this point that, in the musical, we come back from intermission, and shit is about to  _go down._

 _ **"The Finish Line” — Snow Patrol**  
_ So according to my Shara Bey: the Musical/Movie theory, this is meant as sort of a parallel to the first song: it’s a bit dreamy, a bit hazy, and a bit dark. But now there’s some indication that the hope has been fulfilled. 

> _I feel like I am watching everything from space_  
>  _And in a minute I hear my name and I wake_  
>  _I think the finish line's a good place we could start_  
>  _Take a deep breath, take in all that you could want_

They’re home. They have a chance. Shara’s still in a place of not quite _believing_ it — not quite being _used_ to it, to peace or happiness or a domestic life. But she has a shot at it, and she wants to take advantage of it.  
  
I also like the imagery of this: _  
_   

> _The earth is warm next to my ear_  
>  _Insects' noise is all that I hear_  
>  _A magic trick makes the world disappear_  
>  _The skies are dark - they're dark, but they're clear_

I figure there’s always animals buzzing around on Yavin IV, and that it’s always warm, given the tropical climate.

[Also I wrote a fic inspired by this song because, why not.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6487558)  
  
  
**_"In Our Bedroom After the War” — Stars_  
** This is obviously a hopeful song, but it’s also one that’s still filled with a lot of doubts: 

> _We won, or we think we did,_  
>  _When you went away,_  
>  _you were just a kid_  
>  _And if you lost it all, and you lost it,_  
>  _we will still be there when the war is over_

And clearly I see Kes and Shara as having a lot of hope about their future at this point. I mean, Poe talks about his mom: _  
_  

> _She wasn’t the type who dwelled on the past. But get her talking about the future, and she wouldn’t stop. — Poe Dameron Flight Log_

And so I feel like there would definitely be that tentative willingness to embrace the freedom that comes from not literally being at war 24/7 anymore (I know weeks in _Star Wars_ work differently, i duncurr): 

> _Lift your head and look out the window_  
>  _Stay that way for the rest of the day and watch the time go_
> 
> _Listen! The birds sing! Listen! The bells ring!_  
>  _All the living are dead, and the dead are all living_  
>  _The war is over and we are beginning..._

But there’s always going to be a bit of my terrible foreshadowing tendency to fall back on: 

>   _And if the night comes, and the night will come, well at least the war is over_

**_“June Hymn” — _The Decemberists__  
** This is a Pure(TM) song that’s just about Poe and Kes and Shara having a lovely life on Yavin IV, just hanging out, growing things, while the sun (well, technically The Gas Giant Yavin) shines down on them and blesses them with glorious light.

Things are good! No terrible foreshadowing! The only empire to speak of is the encroaching ivy! The only war is all the work they had to do with the planting! Warmth and love and flowers and birds calling in the trees! 

> _Here's a hymn to welcome in the day_  
>  _Heralding a summer's early sway_  
>  _And all the bulbs all comin' in_  
>  _To begin_  
>  _The thrushes' bleeding battle with the wrens_  
>  _Disrupts my reverie again_

(As an aside, the fact that Kes Dameron went from a skilled pathfinder — the toughest & kindest soldier Poe’s ever known — to a farmer [[ALMOST LITERALLY swords into ploughshares!!! iconic!!!!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_to_ploughshares)) is so beautiful to me. Like Shara kept up the civil defense stuff and continued to fly but Kes was like ‘ok war’s over time to plant melons now’ and I love him for it.)  
  
**_“Maybe Sprout Wings” — The Mountain Goats_ _  
_** This song was already on this mix before I watched _Rogue One_ but honestly seeing it just reminded me of the human toll the Galactic Civil War had to have taken — just how many people must’ve died in the process of bringing down the Empire. So it’s obvious that every single person who made it to the other side of the war would likely have lost a great many people they were close to, and how much that would manifest as survivor’s guilt: 

> _I thought of old friends, the one's who'd gone missing_  
>  _Said all their names three times_  
>  _Phantoms in the early dark_  
>  _Canaries in the mines_

I also think of this song as an indication of the psychological toll fighting a war takes on people. Even Kes and Shara, with each other and Poe, would’ve had to deal with anxiety and fear and nightmares: 

> _Try to think good thoughts_  
>  _Trying to find my way clear_  
>  _Let the room fill with steam_  
>  _Trace pictures on the mirror_
> 
> _Ghosts and clouds_  
>  _And nameless things_  
>  _Squint your eyes and hope real hard_  
>  _Maybe sprout wings_

But as parents they’d have to take care of Poe and put on a good face for him, so obviously it might not have been as obvious to him if they were struggling.  
  
**_“Amie” — Damien Rice_ _  
_**This is just such a sad song, full of images that I associate with Shara: _  
_

> _The same old scenario, the same old rain_  
>  _And there's no explosions here_  
>  _Then something unusual, something strange_  
>  _Comes from nothing at all_  
>  _I saw a spaceship fly by your window_  
>  _Did you see it disappear?_

Like we don’t know for sure what happened to Shara, but I kind of vaguely assume protracted illness over a sudden, violent death — Poe speaks of her still running her hand along her A Wing in the space-garage, even after she’d ‘hung up her wings’. So for some reason she was alive but not flying anymore. I know one of the theories is bloodburn and there’s a logic to that, but I don’t know — it could really be anything at this point.

Either way, I feel like Shara (and Kes, and even Poe) had a certain amount of time to come to terms with the fact that Shara was dying, and how unfair it was, for her to make it through the brutal, bloody conflict, to find a happy, peaceful home with the people she loves, and then to lose it for something so random as [whatever her cause of death was]. So the unfairness of it led to moments like:

> _And tell it like you still believe_  
>  _That the end of the century_  
>  _Brings a change for you and me_

The cynicism of ‘hey we though we’d have a go of it, but no, we were fucked after all, we were never going to get a chance to be really happy, not in this galaxy’. _  
_

> _But I'm not a miracle_  
>  _And you're not a saint_  
>  _Just another soldier_  
>  _On the road to nowhere_

It’s just so SAD and ANGRY and I hate it but that’s nevertheless what I picture. A period of that rage against the unfairness, of Shara and Kes not getting a chance at happiness, at Shara not being able to be there for him or for Poe in the future.  
  
**_“Still Fighting It” — Jen Armstrong,_**  
After the brutal bleakness and rage of the last song, I wanted a bit more of the acceptance side of grief, hence this song. I actually see it as kind of the companion of “Dear Theodosia” — a really solid Shara/Poe song, which is important, because she loved him so much and he looks up to her so obviously. 

> _Everybody knows_  
>  _It hurts to grow up_  
>  _But everybody does_  
>  _It's so weird to be back here_  
>  _Let me tell you what_  
>  _The years go on and_  
>  _We're still fighting it_

I mean per _Before the Awakening_ , it was Shara’s death that really brought Poe his sense of mortality and that’s a very clear loss of childhood innocence.

Plus this line: _  
_

> _And you're so much like me_  
>  _I'm sorry_

That always gets to me — Shara is obviously an amazing character and a great person, but part of the legacy both she and Kes created for Poe is one of living up to their example. So he feels so obligated to defend the ideals they fought for, so their sacrifices weren’t in vain, and to do so in a way that tends to put him at risk, not just of DYING TERRIBLE but also running himself ragged (not unlike his mother, who if not for the intervention of her commanding officer, might never have gotten around to mustering out of the Alliance and going home to Yavin IV, even though she _clearly_ wanted to and loved Kes and Poe dearly). 

So Poe’s closeness with his parents — which comes from their great love for him and his obviously solid upbringing — has the consequence of making him a good person and a brave fighter, but also might be costing him some of the same things that his mother (I have theorized) sought and valued.  
  
**_“Remember Me As a Time of Day” — Explosions in the Sky_  
** I usually don’t include instrumentals in fanmixes because lyrics are very important to me when it comes to how I relate songs to characters, but I love the mental image this song gives me: I picture the end of the film, after Shara has died, and this song is playing, as a golden whisper-bird flies into the sunset of Yavin IV, gliding along over the canopy of trees as night falls. 

Plus, I love the name — I feel like Shara would like to be remembered as dawn: all the potential of a day to come, filled with hope and possibilities for life and love and happiness. 


End file.
